Qila Didar Singh - History

History

The origin of the town is related to a Sikh land owner called Didar Singh. When Didar Singh was married, his father gave him the lands surrounding the part of Qila Didar Singh that is currently known as "Old/Inside part of Qila". The name Qila implies a fort; this name originates in the fact that Didar Singh's family had a very large and tall mansion, which was surrounded by smaller houses. Because there was a wall surrounding the whole town with several gates, the town had the appearance of a fort.

During the Indian rebellion of 1857, British troops during chase of the rebels, arrived at the Qila and surrounded it, believing it to be a fort. Representatives of the townpeople however managed to convince the troops that the town was not in fact a fortification.

In 1947, the year of Pakistan's independence from the British Indian Empire, Qila Didar Singh was a very small town with mainly Sikh and Hindu population. Most of the Sikhs and Hindus living in the town moved to the Indian part of the Punjab and many Muslim immigrants moved to the area from the East Punjab, Haryana.

Read more about this topic:  Qila Didar Singh

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
    —George Orwell (1903–1950)